Shot in the Dark
by threedays
Summary: She can feel the warm sun on her back, hear the happy songs of birds and smell the sweet perfume of the flowers. But she can't see any of it. And at her fingertips, a horse she can't see but can't stand to lose desperately needs her help. Set in Season 7.
1. Chapter 1

**Shot in the Dark**

_A Heartland Fanfiction_

_Author's Notes: Set in Season 7, a few episodes after Amy's regained her health and confidence after her accident. Please note that I am not familiar with the region Heartland is set in, and therefore am skimping over weather and flora details and anything else you can't directly see from watching the show. Also, I'm watching the show by bits and pieces on YouTube, so I may not have all my canon facts straight. If I get something wrong, please feel free to correct me! _

Chapter One

Late morning wind rustled the tips of the tall grasses, singing a whispery song that Amy Fleming knew by heart. With her eyes closed, she could smell crushed weeds and flowers, a perfume that brought back memories of being a child in these fields, lying on her back next to her mother, watching clouds that, to her, always resembled horses and ponies galloping across the sky.

There was never a time she wasn't completely consumed with horses.

As awareness returned, Amy realized she wasn't only smelling the grass and weeds. She could feel them pressing their patterns into her cheek and the side of her neck. Confusion began to creep into her mind, competing with the heavy sense of peace melting into her with the warm sun on her back. Why was she lying on her stomach in the weeds? And why couldn't she seem to open her eyes?

At the back of her mind, she recalled darkness, heard hoofbeats and the screams of frightened horses. Thunder.

It was a nightmare that returned less and less frequently, but still had yet to release its hold completely. When she was tired, when she was stressed or worried, she remembered that night in the barn, and Zeus came to her in sleep, hooves flailing against the sky.

But Zeus was better now. She'd fixed him.

So wait, _wait … _Focus! Why was she lying in the grass with her eyes closed?

Her eyes _were_ closed, weren't they?

Fear propelled Amy up off the ground to her knees, but with the motion came two new, horrible sensations: pain, a pounding, grinding pain up the back of her neck and head. And terror. A cold, familiar terror that came with knowing her eyes were open but not being able to see anything.

"Maybe it's night," she pleaded out loud. But even as her thin voice trembled into the bright morning air, she knew it wasn't true. She could hear the birds and bugs, knew the sounds of Heartland in the daytime and how they differed after dark. It was midmorning. She was sure of it. It was midmorning and the sun was out and she couldn't see a thing.

"Ty?"

Unreasonably, she expected him to answer. But in her heart, she knew that if she were hurt and Ty were here, he would be holding her, comforting, _fixing _her just like she fixed horses.

_Horses! _If she were out in a field, it wasn't likely she was alone. There must have been a horse with her!

She tried again: "Spartan?" Hoping it was her most trusted horse, her friend and partner, who was out here with her. Amy attempted to gain her feet, but a wave of dizziness pushed her back onto her knees. She began to feel her way in a circle around her. Crushed weeds. Flattened flowers. Their perfume suddenly didn't smell so sweet. Her stomach churned, and she was sick. She sat for several moments catching her breath, fighting sobs.

Her breath sounded odd to her own ears. It sounded heavy and far away. Too heavy to belong to the shallow heaving her chest seemed restricted to. Focusing as hard as her fuzzy brain would allow, Amy concentrated on the sound. It wasn't her own breathing she was hearing. Fear and hope soared as one – it was scary in a little-kid way to hear something breathing when she couldn't see it – but she knew the sound belonged to the horse she'd been riding. She wasn't alone after all!

"Spartan?" Amy breathed through the pain and managed to make it to her feet. Terror shadowed each step into darkness on uneven footing. She stumbled often. Twice, she fell. But each time, she managed to get back to her feet, feeling her way toward the horse breathing nearby. "Spartan? Is that you?"

A soft nicker. A sound her heart knew no matter what was going on with her eyes.

"Hey, buddy. Hey, Spartan. How you doing, buddy? You okay?"

He didn't come to her. From the sound of his breathing, he wasn't moving. He was also lower than he ought to be. Fear continued to thunder through Amy's heart as she felt her way a tremulous step at a time toward her horse.

She was just starting to think she would never get there when she stumbled across him.

Falling hard on her side, Amy took a moment to catch her breath,fighting tears at the pain that rocketed through her skull with the sudden movement. She had another concussion. Of that, she had no doubt. She couldn't think about that now, couldn't wonder whether this second injury, so close after healing from the first, would finish the job that the first one started. Couldn't wonder if this time the blindness would stick. She had something more important to worry about first. Fingertips trailing through the grass, she regained her sense of space and located Spartan, on his side in the weeds.

"Hey, buddy. What's going on? Huh? Are you okay?" But he wasn't. She knew he wasn't, or he would be on his feet, checking on her. Fear made her clumsy and it took Amy several tries to feel along Spartan's side. She couldn't smell flowers anymore, but copper. No, not copper. Blood. "Oh, Spartan ..."

Her hands found the wound , halfway down his neck and pumping blood. Clumsily, she pulled off her jacket and pressed it to the injury, applying firm pressure to stop the bleeding. "I can't see you," she whispered. "Are you hurt anywhere else? I can't see you!" She was torn between maintaining pressure and continuing her examination of him to find out whether he was hurt anywhere else. Giving in to tears for a moment, Amy cried into Spartan's mane, which had caught so many of her tears over the years, for so many reasons. He nickered again, softly, prompting her to pull herself together.

"Okay. Okay, you're going to be okay." She took a deep, shaky breath. "We're going to be okay, boy. I promise."

Alone and sightless with an injured horse, she only hoped it was a promise she could keep.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Thanks for the great reviews of Chapter One! I promise this whole story isn't going to be spent in this meadow – there is plenty of mystery and action to come! – but I needed one more Amy scene before I could start pulling in the other elements. Enjoy!

**Shot in the Dark**

_Chapter Two_

When you're little enough to lie on your back in a meadow, imagining horses in the clouds, you think that most things are either completely good or entirely bad. You don't know there will be things about your life that are so good and so bad, all tangled up together, that you will never be able to have one without the other.

That was Amy's life, through and through. So many good things, things she couldn't imagine living without, sprouted from dark beginnings. And that was Spartan. Their partnership, launched in a storm on a tragic night years ago, had become one of the major supports in her life.

_From the bad comes good._ Even at the worst moments in her life, Amy tried to remember that mantra. _From the bad comes good._ Without mistreatment and trouble and probation, she wouldn't have Ty. Without cruelty and thunder and the crunch of metal, she wouldn't have Spartan. _From the bad comes good. From the bad …_

But this was _so_ bad. Spartan on his side in the grass, bleeding. Amy unable to see him, to gauge the severity of his injuries. _Or her own._ Her arms trembled with the downward pressure on Spartan's neck, and she had no idea whether she was helping or making things worse.

"I've got you, young man," she said softly to her aging horse, careful to keep the terror out of her voice as much as possible. "I've got you, you're going to be okay."

In the darkness, music played suddenly. Amy worked hard to focus her fuzzy brain on where the music might be coming from, what it might mean. She worked out that it was her phone. Ty's ringtone. _Ty! _If she could get to that phone, if she could find it in the dark, she could hear Ty's voice. Nevermind the rest of it, being rescued, getting help for Spartan. Her goal became Ty's voice. Warmth, comfort, safety, _home. _All of that was Ty.

But …

Spartan. She could not let go of him. He was bleeding. She was confused. Her mind felt heavy and slow, but she knew he was bleeding and when someone was bleeding, you kept pressure. She heard Scott's voice in her head. She could not let go of the wound.

The music stopped and Amy started to cry.

But crying hurt her head and didn't solve anything, so she stopped and swore instead. "Okay. Okay. Think." Which was easier said than done. "Think, Amy." For some reason, her internal stern voice sounded a lot like Lou. "Spartan needs pressure on this wound, but he also needs Scott. If I can get my phone, I can get Scott." _And I can hear Ty's voice and Ty will come and get me oh my god I want Ty._ "I have to do both. I … have to … how am I ..." Talking out loud made her head swim circles faster, so she stopped. But then she felt so lonely in the silent darkness that she started to talk again.

"How did you get hurt?" she wondered aloud. Then, "How did _I _get hurt?" Pressure. How to maintain pressure while she went away to find her phone. Something heavy? Something she could tie? Was she wearing a belt? Slowly, she extracted one hand from the other and felt along her waistline. Yes. Yes, she was wearing a belt. She could fasten it, use it to tie … something … her jacket? … down against Spartan's wound. Long moments later, she realized she wasn't wearing a jacket. It took her several minutes to work out that it was because she had already pressed it to her horse's neck. It was saturated with blood. She still had a flannel. Slowly, slowly, working an inch at a time, she pulled her belt from its loops, freed herself an arm at a time from her flannel. She pressed the fresh cloth down on top of the soaked jacket, then puzzled how to get her belt around the horse's neck. It wasn't long enough. She was slim. Slight. He was a muscular horse. She tucked the edges of the belt under his neck, hoped that light pressure would be enough to press the cloth downward. It would only be for a moment. Only a moment.

"Hold on," she said. "You just stay right there." Again, her tone made her think of Lou. She found it comforting. Lou was a problem-solver. Lou made lists of tasks and then accomplished them. "Okay. My list of tasks. Secure this shirt against this horse. Don't think about why. Find my phone by feel. Don't think about why." Nothing mattered but doing each task she set for herself, one at a time. Tuck the belt tight across Spartan's neck. Feel her way toward the phone. Find it in the grass. Call Ty. Hear Ty's voice.

"I'll be right back," she told Spartan. "You stay here. Good boy." She caressed the uninjured part of his neck and he nickered softly in response. "Brave boy." She let her hand lay along his neck for a moment, praying that she would get to caress him again many more times in their lives, before she crawled away through the weeds in the direction she thought she'd heard her phone. She didn't like the thought of crawling – she was _strong,_ dammit, and she could stand if she put her mind to it! – but she was not going to put her mind to it. Realistically, she was dizzy even down this low. She wouldn't risk falling, risk hurting herself worse or making it more difficult ot help Spartan. The weeds tickled her bare arms. Cool breeze blew across her skin. She thought some time might have slipped past while she was holding pressure on Spartan's injury. Early afternoon? She thought she might smell rain coming.

There was so much grass. So many weeds. Miles of weeds. She touched along the ground, feeling for her phone, feeling for anything to give her direction. She willed the phone to start ringing. She touched the ground in front of her again and again and again. Her fingertips read the earth like Braille. A hoofprint. Another. She and Spartan must have come this way.

The music came again and she sucked in a breath. The sound was much closer than before. Summoning up the energy through sheer force of will, she lunged in the direction of the music, belly-flopped, unable to regain her knees. She felt desperately through the grass with her fingertips. Touched briars, crushed flowers. Her hat. _Her phone!_

Fumbling in the darkness, she tried to visualize what button she would push to answer. She was terrified that the phone would stop ringing before she could make contact. _Ty, wait! _She stabbed at what she hoped was the right button. Put the phone to her ear with one hand. Pressed her hat to her head with the other. Let her cheek rest against the grass, stopped moving at last. The lack of motion felt luxurious. She allowed her eyes to drift shut.

"_Amy?" _The voice was far away, faint, metallic. The voice was Ty, was love and safety. He sounded so casual. Her eyes came open. _"Hey, sorry, I know you're sick of me checking up on you, but I'm not, I swear. I just wanted to ask ..." _She couldn't hear the rest. The tears came back. She sobbed with relief at the sound of Ty's voice. Her own voice stayed stuck somewhere in her throat, but he must have heard her cry, because he stopped talking suddenly. When he started again, his voice was much less casual. _"Amy? Is something wrong?"_

"Ty ..."

Now she could hear raw fear in his voice._"Amy, what's wrong?"_

"Spartan's bleeding … I don't know where we are … I … we must have … _Ty ..._" She couldn't straighten out the words, couldn't figure out what to say first.

"_Amy, speak up, I can't hear you! Are you all right?"_

She struggled to force words past the tears in her throat. Struggled to remember how to speak. "Ty, I can't see. I can't see. Spartan's hurt. Spartan's bleeding and I can't see him."

"_What happened._" Clipped, efficient. A vet's voice, calm in the face of emergency. But underneath, fear. She could hear it even though she couldn't name it. It made her own fear come back.

With fierce focus, she made the words come out in the right order. "I think we had an accident, Ty. Spartan's hurt. I can't see him." A pause. "I can't see anything."

She heard rustling, and, in the distance, Ty said, _"Scott, turn around. We need to get to Heartland." _A pause, Scott's voice, muffled. Then Ty: _"No, we need to get to Heartland _now."

"I want … I want to go, too," Amy said faintly, mind beginning to drift. "Ty, I want to go home ..."

"_Amy, where are you?"_

"I'm here."

A short sigh. Not impatience but frustration. _"Where? Are you at Heartland?"_

She tried to remember, but there wasn't anything. Waking up at home. Morning feed. A squabble with Ty over his protective tendencies. Was that this morning or yesterday? She couldn't get the thoughts to stay in her head.

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

"_No. Don't be sorry. It's okay, we'll figure this out. Did you go riding?"_

"I don't … the last thing I remember is fighting with you. I don't remember taking Spartan out." She breathed in and out sharply. "It was a stupid fight."

"_Yeah, fights usually are. That was early this morning, Amy. Try to remember where you might have gone after that."_

She tried, she did, but there was nothing. Water buckets and flakes of hay and Ty's frustrated face and then she was waking up blind in the grass. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that at least Ty's face was the last thing she could remember seeing. She would have prefered that it was smiling, but it was better than nothing. For a brief moment, she was relieved she could not see Spartan's blood on her hands. Then guilt washed over her. If she could see him, she could help him.

"I don't know. I'm sorry." The words sounded familiar and she worked out that she'd already said them. "I have to get back to Spartan."

Ty seemed to be grasping at her words, trying to glean information from them. _"Where's Spartan? Aren't you with him?"_

"I was. I heard the phone. He's a little ways away." She gulped. "Ty, he's down. Are you with Scott?" Forgetting that she'd heard him talking to the vet moments ago. Thoughts wouldn't stay in her brain, slipped through like river water over rocks.

"_Yeah. I'm with Scott and we're on our way." _His voice sounded muffled for a moment as he talked to Scott, and she caught the words "Jack" and "emergency." She hoped Grandpa wasn't worried. She didn't like upsetting him. _"Amy, Scott's calling Jack and Caleb to see if anyone knows where you might have been headed. We're going to be there soon and we'll all be out looking for you. It won't be long, all right? You hang in there."_

"I have to get back to Spartan."

"_Take the phone with you._"

"Yeah." As if she would let go of his voice. "Just … I can't talk while I ..." she stopped because she couldn't say the word "crawl" to him or he would panic. She began to feel her way back along the trail of hoofprints toward her horse. The way seemed shorter with Ty's voice in her ear.

"_That's okay," _Ty said soothingly. _"You don't have to talk. Just stay with me and I'll talk. You listen. Just focus on my voice and stay with me, Amy." _She heard his breath catch in his throat._ "I can't wait to see how you decorate our new home. But who am I kidding? You'll decorate the barn well before the house, won't you? We'll have to let your sister worry about dishes and curtains. You'll be ordering brass nameplates for the stalls."_ His voice rambled on, giving her something to focus on besides pain and fear. She felt soothed, calmed, and her brain seemed less fuzzy. Short moments later, her fingertips brushed horse hair and she interrupted Ty's speculation about what type of saddle racks she wanted (engraved wood or wall-mounted iron).

"I made it. I'm back to Spartan."

"_Good, that's good. How is he?"_

She took a moment to figure that out for herself. She noted that his breathing hadn't changed, but he didn't greet her with a nicker this time. She left her belt in place across his neck but added the pressure of her hands on top. She thought he was bleeding less. Her flannel was still dry in places.

"I think he's … I think the bleeding's slowing down."

"_Where's he hurt?"_

"His neck."

"_How in the world ..."_

"I don't know. I'm sorry." The theme of the day.

"_Don't be sorry,_" Ty repeated. _"It's okay, everything's going to be fine. We'll be there soon._"

Amy eased herself downward across Spartan's neck, careful not to hurt him, adding the pressure of her weight to his wound. She could feel her strength waning, sapped from the journey to find her phone, and she positioned herself such that her weight would help Spartan, even if she weren't conscious of it.

"Ty," she said quietly, interrupting his mantra of _It's going to be all right._

"_Yeah, I'm here."_

"Ty, I think I … I think I have to go to … to sleep for a while ..."

"_No, Amy. No, stay with me. Stay awake._"

Her heavy eyes closed. "I don't think I can, Ty."

"_No, you can. You _can!_ Just do it. Eyes open. Stay with me."_

She breathed in and out slowly, letting her eyes stay closed because she couldn't tell a difference anyway. "Ty," she said. "I have to … I have to sleep. I'm sorry."

"_No, Amy, don't go to sleep. Don't – Scott, go faster, dammit! Amy!"_

"Love you," she breathed, and the phone slipped from her hand. She did not move to find it.

~_/

High on a ridge, hidden by cover of trees, a lone rider sat atop his horse, staring down at the view. The splendor of the countryside, rattled and rocked by the coming storm, was lost on him. He didn't register the growing whisper of wind through the tall grass. He didn't care about the bright silver rays of sun that still managed to sift through the growing bank of clouds.

His eyes were on a still form in the valley down below.

He knew the girl wasn't dead. He'd seen her moving around before. He was glad. He'd never meant to hurt the girl. He only meant to take that horse out from under her, the horse that meant mobility, meant she could catch up to him. But he was frightened, too. The girl saw him. The girl knew what he was up to. Maybe it would be better if she were out of the picture for good.

His plans had been wrecked this morning, beyond wrecked. He was going to be in so much trouble when his boss found out how things had gone. No one was supposed to see. No one was supposed to know.

Instead, he'd been caught by the girl. Followed. Now everything was a mess.

Below him, the girl was still alive. She didn't know he still watched. She didn't know her life was in his hands.

Now he just had to decide what to do.


End file.
